291. Tanzania has a ratio of two judges to one million people compared to Western Europe where it is 50 judges to one million. For this reason, High Court Judges were each assigned a five-year caseload to dispose of, while case reporting continues.52 Court processes are mostly manual, contrary to established good practice requiring automated and integrated management systems for court recording and the necessary transcriptions for court efficiency and judicial dispatch. 292. The CRM also learnt that justice agencies are not financially independent and lack the financial resources to equitably dispense justice in a timely manner. Judiciary budget approvals of Tz.shs. 20 billion for 2011/2012 already reflected a 36.7 per cent shortfall.53 As a result, court assessors are unable to assist the 974 functioning primary courts and criminal sessions cannnot be convened in the High Court. Other challenges include (i) undue procedural technicalities that cause unwarranted and excessive procedures unnecessarily prolonging litigation at the expense of court users, and undermining public confidence in justice delivery; (ii) the perception of corruption in the police and judiciary, denting the integrity and credibility of justice delivery institutions54; and, (iii) governance and accountability challenges when the village council and ward tribunals provide access to justice in land matters under the administrative supervision of the Executive (Ministry for Land and Human Settlements). 293. The CRM observes that the absence of a comprehensive legal framework and coordinated and effective legal aid schemes for all indigent parties to both civil and criminal proceedings further compromises quality in the justice sector. Compared against population estimates of 43 million inhabitants, the 2,317 advocates can only provide uneven coverage nationwide. The minimal presence of legal professionals in rural areas compounds the challenges in justice delivery. The Bar does allow law schools in Universities and CSOs (TAWLA, LHCR, and NOLA) to offer legal aid. Successful paralegal centers are also operating in rural areas in Mtwara and Songea. These options are encouraging but inadequate. Further, the role, scope of work, and qualifications for paralegals are yet to be legally recognized. Moreover, the State should wield primary responsibility for legal aid provision in both civil and criminal matters; other actors’ efforts should only be complementary. Legal aid in civil matters is even more critical in a society where disputes over land, inheritance, family matters, and so on are prevalent. 294. The CRM notes that the impact of all these constraints is a high backlog of cases in the justice system. The public goes ‘shopping’ from one agency to another in the hope that one of them will resolve their disputes. Many disputes go unresolved, while suspects of serious or violent crime are held on remand for unreasonable periods of time without adequate time or the legal counsel to prepare. Prisons are seriously congested: holding more than twice as many inmates as they were built for. For example, the Mbeya Central Prisons has a capacity of 400 but is currently detaining more than 900 inmates. 295. In 2010, persons on remand in Arusha, Tanga and Morogoro staged boycotts over delays in hearing their cases. In Morogoro, they protested by refusing to get out of the prison truck. It is no wonder that the CRM was informed that complainants use politicians to resolve disputes or, increasingly, take justice into their own hands by resorting to mob violence. 296. These systemic constraints are aggravated by the lack of coordination among the justice agencies despite the existence of the LSRP, also partially responsible for donor coordination. At the regional and district level, it emerged that no institutional frameworks exist for coordination and neither are there problem-solving fora where all the institutions - together with representatives of court users - could identify priorities to determine effective responses to citizens’ concerns. The CRM was repeatedly given instances of institutions blaming each other for the effects of systemic dysfunction. 297. The CRM was further informed that, although LSRP has been operational for some time, it has limited impact. The CRM established that this is attributed to the slow pace of reforms and Government’s inability to take on full ownership, making it difficult to address the challenges with confidence.55 This is compounded by the lack of a real consensus about what is described as conflicting mandates among institutions that look to the LSRP for funding rather than as a mechanism for genuine reforms. In addition, since the LSRP has not been mainstreamed Tanzania, 17 February 2012. 52 Ibid. 9. 53 Ibid, p.8 54 Ibid.14 55 Unlocking the Road to Timely Justice for All: Review of the Legal Sector Review Programme, 2008. See also the LHRC Annual Report 2010, pp. 72-73. 75